Selfless Love [2022]

We have found a new world of bad movies to explore: Nollywood. Sure, we've watched Hollywood films that suck but want your eyes on them and will use violence and explosions to do it. We've watched Bollywood movies that are out to entertain you with every genre at once in three hours of unrelenting activity of all kinds. But now we have Nollywood and on the basis of one film, they are also out to entertain you no matter what but specifically with insane interpersonal drama. This movie is the Nigerian The Room.

In the very first scene we get a woman putting together a plate and then another woman entering and getting mad at her for eating her food. That's the start. That's how we are introduced to the main conflict. The eater is Rebecca and the cook is Aurelia. Aurelia is married to Rebecca's brother, Maxwell, a man with no backbone and a permanent kicked puppy expression while the women around him are upset and he does nothing to help. Shortly after this intro to our mains, Stella, Maxwell's cousin, moves in so Rebecca has a partner in crime. They convince Maxwell that Aurelia has demons and needs an exorcism, which they do on the balcony of their razor-wire protected compound. Maxwell kowtows to Rebecca because she raised him like a mother and he feels in debt to her so he is seemingly bankrolling all three women out of a sense of duty. Max then goes away for a while and Aurelia finds out that after three years of trying, she's finally pregnant. She doesn't tell Rebecca because she wants it to be a surprise for Maxwell so Rebecca just thinks she's being lazy and makes her life hell. Aurelia has a miscarriage and again, doesn't tell Maxwell so there's even more of a strain between them. She asks Maxwell to make Stella leave and he tries but, of course, Rebecca flips out. Eventually Maxwell stands up to Rebecca and she responds by immediately stabbing herself in the stomach. The doctor, a friend of Max, tells him about the miscarriage that was caused by Rebecca, and Maxwell finally decides to kick out his sister and chose his wife. The film ends with Rebecca and Stella getting mugged and Aurelia is pregnant again.

Recounting the events really doesn't do this film justice: it is insane. The face acting on Rebecca and Stella alone is worth it. This movie is so over the top in its drama that you are never bored. The music stings are abrupt and the background score sounds full Casio aside from the one song with lyrics that they paid for so they play it a minimum of four times. There are establishing shots as scene transitions when there are only three locations in the whole film (the house and the area in front of it, an alley where the priestess lives, and the doctor office). Minus the sex scenes, it really is The Room with a different plot. Please watch it. We will be looking into more Nollywood films for sure.

Spoon Rating: 8 

You Only Live Twice [1967]

I am by no means a connoisseur of James Bond movies, but I've seen a few in my day. I know the earlier ones are more silly while the later ones are more serious. I know that while the movies never had great representation of women, they definitely start bad and get better. I've heard that depictions of racial groups could be really cringe at best and outright racist at worst. This movie has all those bad qualities, while also just being kind of odd in harder to define ways. There are some unique [derogatory] editing moments, a plot that only starts to make sense later, the origins of many an Austin Powers joke, and on top of all that, the script is written by Roald Dahl. You'd hardly guess considering the lack of traumatized children.

The film starts with an unidentified spaceship eating another spaceship and crashing to Earth. The Americans think it's the Russians. The British don't give a fuck. Apparently it landed in the sea of Japan so it's off to Japan. But first, James Bond fakes his death in the most convoluted and unreal way that involves a sea burial. Hence the title of the film: YOLT.

The first 40 minutes of the movie are kind of random and not too weird outside of a scene where a mini-helicopter is constructed with quick cuts and then there's a heli fight that feels like the film's equivalent of pod racing. Bond meets with a bunch of people in quirky offices and pretends to be someone else, easily now as everyone thinks he's dead, and sleeps with some women who will eventually all get killed. After he finds his Japanese hook-up though, we get women in bikinis doing rubdowns, the reveal of ninjas, the goal of turning James Bond Japanese (he just looks like a different white guy), marrying him off to a Japanese agent who spends most of the movie in a white bikini after she's out of her kimono, and hiding him in a remote fishing village. The location of the village means he sees helicopters flying into a volcano and goes to investigate.

It turns out that the evil spaceship was launched by Spectre, the head of which is the character Dr. Evil was based off of, stroking cat and all. This man has a lair in a volcano with a shitty monorail and a flesh-eating piranha pit. This movie is not serious, and outside of wanting to start a war between the US and Russia, the motivations are unclear.

Bond escapes the lair and solves the mystery. At least the cat is okay.

Spoon Rating: 5

Ax 'Em [1992]

This film may have some of the worst sound we've had at least for a while. Probably a by-product of the home movie quality. The plot was very similar in vibe to Sledgehammer from a few weeks ago: a bunch of college kids rent a cabin and a ghost-zombie of the murderer who lived there comes for them. At one point we got a subplot where two guys enter a house to look for help when their car breaks down and the black friend correctly nopes out of there immediately while the white friend becomes a target. No one really dies, including the murderer.

While the specifics of the plot were basically impossible to follow because we couldn't hear anything, we did get a lot of laughs from scenes that we genuinely didn't know if they were supposed to be funny or not. Even Jade, who is afraid of basically everything being four years old, was laughing.

Spoon Rating: 3

Slipstream [2005]

Not to be confused with any other films of the same name as this is actually the third most searched film called Slipstream. This film is apparently the worst time travel movie and it doesn't come by that title lightly. At an hour and half run time, this film manages to feel like it's going nowhere slowly and then it literally goes nowhere. Amazing. 

The film is centered around a theoretical physicist who has invented a time machine that only works in ten minute increments. The FBI wants to get him for it so they attempt to at a bank where he is extremely unsuccessfully hitting on the teller and using the machine to try again. In the process, the bank is robbed by a bunch of British robbers. One of the FBI agents is shot and his partner/lover cuffs herself to the physicist so they can go after the bad guys. Hi-jinks kind of ensue as the lead robber's girlfriend is shot and the three mains end up in disguise on a plane where the lead robber is trying to escape and using them as collateral or something. The plane is about to crash, killing everyone, when the physicist manages to make the machine go beyond ten minutes and we literally go back to the start so everything can go right: physicist gets a date with the teller, the FBI agents cement their love for each other, and the robbers decide not to rob because lead robber knows it will end badly. Completely pointless.

The weak plot is actually well supplemented by some terrible acting that ranges from bland to "my, this scenery is delicious," dumb looking special effects (particular shout out to the mannequin who blew up), and a director who is trying so hard to make the movie artistic and deep but only has a few tricks up his sleeve and they are mostly rotating shots and slow motion. Get wrecked people with motion sickness! We were a bit divided on whether this one is worth watching, but we ultimately decided to give it that little push. Third is popularity but first in our hearts. 

Spoon Rating: 5 

John Henry [2020]

This movie is a real unicorn of bad movies. A lot of the time with bad movies we can find something to like about it outside of the unintentionally funny parts, but rarely do we ever walk away from a bad movie talking about how the cinematography and direction were actually really nice. That's the case here however. With such interesting use of color and angle I assumed the director had a history in making music videos but at least according to IMDb, nope. He just has a good eye. Unfortunately, he also wrote the script and he does not have a way with plots or dialogue in the way that he does with camera work.

The movie is called John Henry but it has almost nothing to do with the folk legend. In fact, it has about as much to do with the folk legend as the Shaq movie we watched a few weeks ago, Steel. Henry is a strong black guy with a big hammer. That's it. The whole theme about technology versus man? Absent completely. In fact, this movie feels most like a Tarantino film and that really seems to be the inspiration. The plot revolves around a gang that dresses in white. A Honduran woman is rescued from the gang by her half brother who is American and who she got kidnapped from when she came to the US to meet him. This woman, Berta, ends up at John's house and hangs out with him and his dad. John already has beef with this gang because the film starts with one of the gang members running over his dog, but it is then way too slowly reveled that John used to be in the gang himself and that the current leader is his cousin played by Ludacris. Ludacris has a metal jaw because John accidentally shot him when trying to leave the gang many years ago. The gang member bust into John's house, kill his dad, and rekidnap Berta, and the film ends with a final standoff between the cousins. The music implies that John died, because the folk John Henry died, but it's left ambiguous.

This film's plot is so thin that it could have been a half hour. However, in between the lack of plot we get those aforementioned nice shots and some of the funniest music stings we've seen in a while. Most of the film's music was far too on the nose and that final standoff was scored exactly like a spaghetti Western, really pulling that Tarantino comparison. Probably the best scene in the movie was also rather Tarantino-esque: two guys on a stakeout just start having the most random conversation ever about the movie Human Centipede and black recidivism. A My Dinner With Andre style film about them would have been way better than this. Honestly, you should watch this one at least once.

Spoon Rating: 5 

The Hugga Bunch [1985] & others

We started our evening with a truly confusing film. This movie, in spite of the cover, is not animated. It is actually a tale of a friendless 7-year-old who is scared at the prospect of her grandmother being forced to move out of their house and into a nursing home. One day while playing with her stuffed animals, a horrible "cute" creature falls out of her mirror and talks to her about the joys of hugging. She enters the mirror realm with the goals of finding a way to youthify her grandma so she won't have to leave. This requires an adventure to a castle to get a fruit but the castle is owned by the hammiest iteration of the evil queen from Snow White. They take some of her magic youth fruit but on return to our world, she drops it all and it disappears. Turns out the whole adventure was useless. All she needed to do to keep grandma around was to yell at her older brother to show some appreciation for their grandma. He cries and begs her to stay so she does. Problem solved; movie unnecessary. 

Turns out the whole film was just a cynical attempt at selling toys, like a lot of children's media of the 80s. Either way, this film was delightfully bad. The acting was bad from everyone but especially our lead child and the evil queen who leaves no scenery unchewed. The puppets are terrifying. The hugging thing gets really awkward a lot of the time. The message is muddled. And the kids were pretty committed to watching it actually. Everyone wins.

Spoon Rating: 5 

Afterwards we watched two absolutely wack AI videos - "Harry Potter by Balenciaga" and "Top 5 Steven Hawking AI Videos" - to see if this is a valid route for comedy and they both made us laugh hysterically so this might be a rabbit hole for the future. 

Then we watched as much of the "101 Things to Love About Geissler's" commercial series that we could find, a bunch of short, fairly poor quality videos for a local grocery store. Adam is convinced there is lore there, and we tried to find it. The one of the Sweet Dee dance was particularly good.

The Adventures Of Food Boy [2008]

Were you wondering what the gay brother from High School Musical was doing in between sequels? I have your answer, and you aren't going to like it.

This no-stakes film follows a high school junior who cares more than anything about getting into an Ivy League university so he decides to run for class president in spite of debilitating unpopularity. He gains a bit of notoriety from eating challenges before discovering that he has the power to create food from his hands, a genetic mutation he shares with his grandmother. After winning the vice president title in the middle of the film (and filling a bathroom with lunch meat, bread, and mustard while unable to control his powers), the plot plods along with the mere question of, Will Food Boy maintain his food producing powers or try to give them up on the day they solidify? It is pointless. There's also a side plot with his female friend who has the most obvious crush in the world on him while he's completely oblivious, and there's a teacher who has decided to hate him for being late and he's more a villain than any popular kids. He does "magic tricks" of shooting food at the crowd during a pep rally and of producing food on command at the talent show. He stocks a homeless shelter. He learns about the great history of these food people. And yet, AND YET, he doesn't decide his powers might be useful until he produces some frozen veggies to help out the 35-year-old class president's injury acquired during an ending food fight. Food Boy he shall be forever.

I cannot even imagine the pitch meeting for this film. I cannot even imagine the target demographic for this film. I cannot even imagine an editor trying to plot out this film. I cannot even imagine how these actors who are mostly in their 30s or at least their 20s could have even been cast as high schoolers. And yet, somehow, this film exists. And that counts for something.

Spoon Rating: 5 

Beaks: The Movie [1987]

Somewhere between The Birds and Birdemic, you'll find this. While it has pretty darn good special effects and doesn't have a nearly 10 minute driving scene, there's nothing too much to say here. Birds attack Spain and a journalist who wants better jobs and her cameraman boyfriend investigate. The birds are mostly getting revenge on hunters, bird shooters, and chicken farmers, which we are all for. They suspect it's anger at the humans for climate change. Also, good. Caw caw, motherfucker.

Spoon Rating: 3 

TNT Jackson [1974]

This extremely bland blaxploitation film can be summed up very easily: TNT Jackson goes to Hong Kong to find whoever murdered her brother and finds the murderer pretty randomly just by hanging out with sketchy drug dealers and an undercover cop. A lot of weak martial arts. Some gun fighting. Light boobage. A couple funny over-the-top injuries but otherwise boring and confusing.

More interesting than this film is the life of the lead actress who goes by many names. She was a Playboy playmate, aspired to professional bowling at one point, and is currently a fitness influencer in her 80s who has broken a ton of fitness records for her age. Amazing.

Skip the film, but maybe check out her Instagram?

Spoon Rating: 2 

The Fantastic Four [1994]

This movie was made but never released. In spite of that, it was fully edited albeit of really low video and audio quality. So why does it exist? A movie needed to be made to hold onto the copyright. And I guess this was the start in what appears to be a cursed franchise so no movie about these characters seems to be any good.

From what we could gleam, this was mostly an origin story of the four with two villains: a sewer man who kidnaps a blind artist who eventually falls in love with The Thing and Dr. Doom who has a bone to pick with Mr. Fantastic. Dr. Doom is especially fun with his fixation on caressing people's faces and his flair for the dramatic. Aside from that, the special effects are very special. It was pretty dry for most of the film but the last 10 minutes or so were pretty much non-stop laughter. 

We can't totally recommend it, but it wouldn't necessarily be a waste to watch.

Spoon Rating: 4 

Sledgehammer [1983]

From the genius mind that gave us Deadly Prey comes his first film, a basic slasher-in-the-house-of-college-kids film. 

The plot is simple. An eight-year-old is locked in a closet so his mom can bang her lover, he gets out and murders them with a sledgehammer. Years later, the house is rented out by college kids for a night of partying and he takes his sledgehammer to them. The most confusing thing about the film is the killer himself. He seems to be resurrected by the college kids during a seance, but was he even dead? We never hear of him dying, but he does seem to materialize in the form of a man, implying that maybe he grew up and then died? However sometimes he reverts back to his eight-year-old state. Does it matter really? We're just here for death right? Death and excessive mullets and the longest still shots you could imagine juxtaposed with slow mo because gosh darn it we are going to try to get this film as close to an hour and a half as we can.

We were a bit divided on this film. We laughed a bit but the long shorts, slow motion, and long flashbacks made the film drag quite a bit. You probably won't regret watching it, but we are not sure if it's a guaranteed watch.

Spoon Rating: 4.5 

Pregnant By My Tough Daddy CEO [2025]

We have dived into the vertical drama well again, and as excellent as the title of this one is, we actually started watching a different one, The Double Life Of My Billionaire Husband. About 50 minutes in, it started getting spliced with a different movie, which actually was the one of the title, and it turned out after some quick research that we had actually been watching Pregnant By My Tough Daddy CEO, an objectively funnier premise. While this movie did hit a lot of the same telenovela beats as the previous vertical drama we watched, 30 Years Frozen, the actors in that one were chewing all the scenery while these actors were basically asleep and had no chemistry. It was awesome.

The plot was another "the perfectest girl is bullied by everyone but wins in the end" vibe. In this case the girl, Aurora Sinclair, a porn star name if I've ever heard one, is rescued from bullying from her college roommate because she couldn't afford a bagel by a billionaire she once bought a water for three years ago (when he had been robbed or something? unclear). In a desperate financial situation, she gets a job as a slutty cocktail waitress and is again saved by harassment by the billionaire, Caleb Hunter. They have a one night stand - she's a virgin, he's mostly infertile, both these things are important - and in the morning he offers to pay for her mom's surgery misunderstanding her as a gold digger. Two months later she's pregnant with his twins, and he realizes the money request was a misunderstanding so he comes to find her, saving her from her evil brother, and decides they are going to get married. From there it's a series of her being mistreated by his mom (who she wins over with food and shopping), his cousin, her roommate again, a childhood friend of Caleb's, her brother and roommate again, and him constantly coming to her rescue. They are also awkward around sex in spite of her being pregnant with his twins. She's so pure and perfect, you see. She gives birth. They get married. Again, the good girl wins it all in the wish fulfillment fantasy of a preteen.

Again, another consistent laugh factory only paling in comparison to our previous vertical drama because that one's premise was just so much wackier and the acting was so much more earnest. Still a great watch though! How does one hit the limit on a no-limit credit card? Why would someone keep a used condom next to them in bed all night, only realizing it broke in the morning? Why did she buy a $50,000 dress and do those even exist when the billionaires on Succession don't even wear stuff that expensive? All questions this movie will make you ponder.

Spoon Rating: 7 

War Of The Worlds [2025]

After all the hype (what's the opposite of hype - derision?) that we have seen for this film, it had to be a movie night prospect. It's even free with Amazon Prime, a fact that will make a lot of sense really quickly. You see, in the grand pantheon of adaptions of the H.G. Wells novel that don't really follow the plot of the original, this movie provides something the 2005 Tom Cruise flick didn't have: masses of overt product placement for the US's top abhorrent billionaires. Amazon, of course, is not only mentioned (specifically a reoccurring bad joke about spying on people's Amazon carts) but the main character's future son-in-law is a driver for Amazon and a key moment in the film involves him using Amazon's drone shipping service to save the day. And that's actually not all. Tesla is prominently featured for its self-driving capabilities, Facebook makes multiple appearances as both a source of communication and a way for the main character to memorialize his dead wife, and Whats App, which we now know is owned by Meta, is the main way characters video call each other, which is in no way true to reality unless you live outside of the United States. 

In fact, let me talk a little bit more about video calls specifically because they are constant in this film with good reason: this is a film that takes place almost entirely on a computer screen a la Unfriended or Open Windows. Ice Cube places an NSA guy who spies constantly on his kids. When the aliens come, apparently they all still have time for video calls so that Cube can see the aliens without actually leaving his Pentagon bunker. It's so stupid, I can't even. The parts that aren't on the computer screen are just shots of Ice Cube's face in his office going through some of the most hilarious and muted face journeys you could possibly imagine. Of course they discover that the aliens are cyborgs and being half organic-half machine is perfect since Cube's daughter is a biologist and his son is a computer hacker who he's been unknowingly trying to track down. They infect the aliens with a virus when they go to gobble up that sweet, sweet data and the family tension is reconciled even though we get no evidence that Cube isn't still stalking his kids.

For the stupid style choices, the predictable as hell plot, the overly dramatic editing, the expressions, and the blatant product placement, this is a good time. Of course, as long as you can watch it for free and aren't giving Amazon any more money to watch this hour and a half long ad.

Spoon Rating: 5 

Also that night we did something probably totally ill advised and did a single elimination taste test of 16 different milk chocolates. Our top three brands were Ritter Sport, Tony's Chocolonely, and Chocolove.

Steel [1997]

In the same vein as that Nick Fury movie we watched a while back starting The Hoff, here we have another half-hearted 90s superhero movie starring a celebrity but this time that celebrity is Shaq. In this film Shaq, named John Henry Irons, no really, is in the military but leaves when his partner Sparks (future lover? spiritual sibling? their relationship is odd) becomes disabled as a result of a crazy man doing crazy things with weapons. Later on Sparks and Irons (YOU SEE THAT) team up to make Irons into a superhero to fight crime on the streets where all these military grade weapons are suspiciously showing up. He does but leaves his throat unprotected, which surely won't be a problem. 

The best part of the film is definitely the last ten minutes where there is insane fighting and acting. Overall, it's just a below average film with some moments.

Spoon Rating: 3

30 Years Frozen, 3 Brothers Regret [2025]

We have discovered a brand new category of bad movie in the TikTok age. This film came to us from a Facebook ad that targeted Sarah. She doesn't know what she did to cause this ad, but it was accurately targeted as we absolutely wanted to watch this, albeit perhaps not for the reason other people might want to.

This film is actually a collection of shorts, 57ish I believe, sewn together to create a feature length film. It wasn't originally shown on TikTok, but the format is clearly designed for that kind of format. The TikTokery of the film is not just in the format but also in the content. This film feels like its target demographic, outside of bad movie connoisseurs, is sad girls between the ages of 8-12 who feel unappreciated and want some validation that they may one day get their karmic retribution.

The plot to this movie is insane. A rich family of three brothers adopt an orphan girl, Selene, to be their sister after their biological sister disappeared. Until her 16th birthday, they treat her like a princess to the point where there might be something borderline inappropriate about how much these brothers love her. However, then their "real" sister, Stella, shows up and they immediately turn on Selene, hating her and only listening to Stella who wants to drive her out of the family for some reason. After Selene suffers more than anyone has suffered for two years, she volunteers herself as an test dummy for her oldest brother's vague science company where she will be frozen for thirty years and maybe die in the process. She also offers to give her eyes to her middle brother who's blind and does all of this anonymously. After she disappears, the brothers try to figure out what happened to her and reflect on how badly they treated her as they slowly realize that Stella is insane. They also find out that Selene is actually their "real" sister and Stella somehow caused this whole mess. Just go with it. They wait patiently for Selene to wake after those thirty years and even restore her sight (somehow) only for her to wake up not knowing who they are.

Where do I even start? The plot holes? The over-the-top sad plot? The complete redemption for the selfless main character? The Batman-esque cackling villain? The copious, repetitive flashbacks? The fake cliffhangers? The ACTING? Oh, the acting. This is some of the worst acting we've ever seen. Everyone is chewing the scenery on telenovela levels. It's hard to imagine someone watching this without laughing hysterically the whole time like we did. It's hard to imagine someone actually feeling anything from this story aside from joy. 

It's a work of art. Please watch it.

 Spoon Rating: 9 

A Thief In The Night [1972] & Cow [2009]

Our first film of the night was a Christian film about the end of the world. At only an hour, it's worth your time although the main winning parts of the film are in the first half of the film where we get such wonderful quotes as, "All you need to give is your life" and "We met some really great guys." "I met Christ." The film sells the narrative that the end is near so you have to accept Jesus now because you might wake up in the rapture. This is what happens to one of three friends in the second half of the film. She must navigate the world where her husband and one friend is gone and everyone is getting stamped with some abstract representation of the number of the beast. It ends with her waking up from a dream but it's still the rapture so maybe she's in a Groundhog Dog situation.

Spoon Rating: 5 

Our second, shorter feature was an anti-texting and driving short from the UK with some stellar Welsh accents. The first ten minutes are kind of fun, but it gets serious quickly when a car accident causes multiple deaths. We need to stop watching car accident PSAs because they really can only be so fun.

Spoon Rating: 2
 

Rock: It's Your Decision [1982]

Spoiler: it's not. 

This Christian film insists that rock music is bad but frames it like listening to it is a choice. 

Spoon Rating: 4

The Last Slumber Party [1988]

So we watched this. And while that horrible mishmash of fonts was definitely in the film, I don't know who any of those girls are. There are three girls, sure, but not them.

Overall, the plot of this sleepover slasher flick is what you would expect with a few weird adjustments. Three girls have a sleepover and three guys sneak over one by one for hanky panky. The only issue is that there is a maniac on the loose, dressed like a doctor and killing people with a tiny scalpel. The first two guy deaths are the result of the girls going off to shower before sex. Then we have a plot twist in the form of the class nerd, dressed in the same scrubs as the killer, entering the bedroom (everyone used a ladder and at no point does anyone shut the window) and doing some of the killing himself before getting offed himself. At some point it becomes clear that the girl whose house they are at, who certainly seems like The Final Girl, is not the main character and it's actually another girl. She watches everyone get killed only to wake up and have to do it all again. 

At a thin 70 minutes, this movie doesn't overstay it's welcome and it's better for it. The acting is really bad in the best way and somehow no one ever has a reasonable level of fear or surprise. Not a bad option!

Spoon Rating: 5 

Raw Force [1982]

Also known as Kung Fu Cannibals, which is actually a more accurate title but maybe kind of a spoiler. This one is another from the Bad Movie Bible that actually really delivered. Mainly, it's a win because of the absolutely insane acting. It feels almost like everyone was completely aware that the movie they are in is absurd and really went for it.

The plot revolves around a cruise ship going somewhere in the Pacific (this embark from LA and mention the South China Sea at some point). The ship has a bunch of martial artists on it who would like to go to Warrior's Island, an island for disgraced martial artists but apparently you aren't supposed to land there. The place is run by evil monks who are part of a human trafficking scene where they buy girls with jade and then eat them to gain the power to raise the dead. I'm sure that's what you would expect. The ship has plenty of debauchery on it until it is invaded by pirates looking to kidnap women. The ship is destroyed and the cast is reduced down to about eight people trapped on Warrior's Island where they must fight for their lives against monks, zombies, and the evil German leader of the trafficking operation. They win against them and leave with the words "to be continued" only for there to be no sequel.

As I mentioned, the real win here is the acting, which is insane. From the head monk steepling his fingers in evil joy, to the German guy who somehow manages to come off as an antiquated Japanese stereotype, to a clueless birthday boy about to have sex with a confessed murder, everyone is here for a good time.

Spoon Rating: 6

Nick Fury: Agent Of S.H.I.E.L.D. [1998]

If you think Sam Jackson's portrayal of Nick Fury in the Marvel movies is too restrained and subtle, have I got a movie for you. Hilariously, even though Hasselhoff is the lead and he isn't known for chill, they definitely tried to balance out the cast with a bunch of scenery-munchers that are here for a good time, if not a long time. This film was meant to be a backdoor pilot for a television that never got off the ground, but at least we'll always have this.

The plot is a pretty standard good versus evil situation, specifically SHIELD versus Hydra. On the SHIELD side we have The Hoff, a woman with the most 90s makeup you could imagine and is also his love interest, a British man who speaks mostly in stereotypical slang, and another woman who can read minds but like, not well. On the Hydra side we have a psychotic blonde lady with an extensive wardrobe budget so she can dress like the villain she is, her brother she's a smidge too close to, and the frozen corpse of her dad.  Hydra wants to unite the terrorists (I'm sure there will be no ideological issues here) and release a dangerous toxin on all of New York City. SHIELD gotta stop it. They do.

While the plot is thin, the acting is aces. It's no surprise why this didn't make for a compelling potential show, but it'll make for a fun evening.

Spoon Rating: 5

REWATCH: Samurai Cop [1991]

Last Monday we rewatched the legendary Samurai Cop with Adam's nibling, Ash, and three-year-old Jade who actually did a good job of watching quietly. It's a film for kids and adults, I guess.

Read my original review here.

Da Hip Hop Witch [2000]

You can tell from the title that this is going to be something special. This parody of The Blair Witch Project was made on a budget of a couple blunts and features a bunch of musicians most famously Eminem, Ja Rule (known for good films), and the "Graduation" singer Vitamin C. It does have a slight semblance of plot but mostly it consists of interviews with famous rappers who supposedly encountered The Black Witch or Hip Hop Witch. Apparently she is a beautiful woman naked under a trenchcoat but she's also evil and as Eminem tells us many times, she will stick things in your butt. The two "plots" include a group of five white kids from Framingham, MA who want to find the witch and a woman in a news office who is getting sexually harassed by the big boss while her requests to do a story on the Witch are ignored by her direct supervisor. Neither of these really goes anywhere. The real joy is in the random shots. Eminem is acting his extremely high ass off while the editor tries unsuccessfully to blur the blunt and the Bud Light. A guy on a bicycle drives around ominously shouting "she's coming!" and bringing me great joy. The camera angles are all up in people's business, probably to hide the lack of shooting permits. This movie is trying so hard to be funny, and it succeeds incorrectly: a perfect bad movie. And in spite of a track record of films about musicians having terrible sound editing, you actually could hear most of the film. Win!

Honestly, we laughed a lot. It's a solid recommend from us.

Spoon Rating: 7

Under The Cherry Moon [1986]

Another Razzie winner, this film is both starring and directed by Prince. In some ways, this makes sense. The movie is heavily based on vibes and there is definitely interest in the visuals. The film is in black-and-white and set in Nice with some distinct Casablanca ambiance in the opening scene. The costumes are all really interesting to look at and, with the exception of a lot of Prince's clothes specifically, surprisingly stylish for the 80s, a notoriously horrifying fashion decade. The sets are very beautiful and meant to evoke old money wealth. The problem is the actual substance of the film. 

The film revolves around Prince's character, Christopher, and his friend Tricky who are basically on a quest to marry rich women to get money out of them in the divorce. They set their sights on a rich girl who just turned 21 and is supposed to get a $50,000,000 trust. Over the course of the film she and Prince supposedly fall in love. I say supposedly because they have no chemistry and spend a lot of the film arguing. In the end, he gets shot for kidnapping her and she funds Tricky's desire to own an apartment complex in Miami while Prince plays music in heaven.

The film is just odd. A lot of plot explanation is dropped in conversation long after we needed it, and the dialogue is hard to follow anyway because the sound mixing is atrocious. The film is scored by Prince and the Revolution, of course, but the balance is so bad we can't hear the actors a lot of the time. And then there's just the plot in general, which is thin and unconvincing. There were some comedic music stings (which maybe weren't supposed to be funny) and some really bad acting moments, but overall it was only okay. Definitely an interesting curiosity, but you don't have to add it to your list unless you really need to hear those 80s jams.

Spoon Rating: 4

The Lonely Lady [1983]

This film was a Razzie winner in its time and it deserves that title for being so bad in such a hard to articulate way. This movie was never quite what we thought it was going to be, and those surprises got a strong reaction. Let me try to explain.

The film starts with an award show (basically the Oscars but not) where a woman is entering alone and because of this she is assumed to be no one. Flashback to her high school days when she won an award for writing and later that night is raped by a hose. Yeah, we were shocked too. The owner of the house where this happened is a famous screenwriter who goes to talk to her and this sparks up a connection. They marry. He's at minimum 35 years older than her. The marriage goes sour after a while due mainly to him being jealous of her ability after giving her a chance at writing on one of his films. She then has an affair with an actor and tries to get a script she wrote looked at. She doesn't get a deal but she does get an abortion. Then she gets a job working at a club where the club owner, who she eventually screws, offers to send out her script. He doesn't but she does get duped into having sex with a couple who she thinks will help her. Finally she gets "help" from a producer and his wife, but it seems to be a lavender marriage where she has to screw the wife to get her movie made. It does get made and she wins her Noscar for it and she uses her speech to basically admit she fucked her way to the top and it wasn't worth it. 

This film was wild. Aside from the plot, there were some incredible moments of melodrama and the surprise of her speech at the end was honestly pretty satisfying. The thing we really can't figure out though is the title. She's metaphorically lonely in the sense that she is left out to dry by everyone, but she doesn't seem to be at a loss for companionship at all. 

Also the lead actress was apparently Little Miss Muffet in Adam's childhood favorite of Mother Goose Rock n' Rhyme. Glad to know she did something else even if it was this.

Spoon Rating: 5

Madame Web [2024]

A Razzie award winner and much discussed as one of the worst movies of the year, this one was bound to be a solid one and it definitely was. Between the fact that this is a by-the-numbers superhero origin story that is so clearly a sequel or television set up, the weird directing full of Dutch angles and camera flips, the excessive spiderweb motifs and Pepsi shilling, the Cassandra-the-prophet connection, the mid-2000s styling that is always slightly off, and the stiff acting, this film was a . . . marvel.

The film starts with a very pregnant spider scientist in the Amazon getting nearly murdered by her spider stealing colleague before she gives birth and dies. That daughter in 2003 is an EMT and lone wolf who nearly drowns, awakening her ability to see the future. This leads her to three teenage girls with absent parents who are being hunted down by the aforementioned stealing colleague who has used the spider to become some kind of evil spiderman. Most of the movie is her trying to protect them with a little detour to Peru to learn what really happened with her mom. Insert a lot of action that should really have killed the villain and the shoehorning in of the birth of Peter Parker.

Aside from everything I mentioned in the first paragraph, it's most hilarious how because this film was a complete bomb that also means that it is extremely pointless. The whole film is a setup to something that will never be made. At least we have the unintentional comedy of this film to live on. We will however keep wondering if the 2003 setting was meant to tap into the current Y2K nostalgia and if the fact that the fashions were all not quite right was on purpose to try to appeal to current trends. It certainly was an attempt as this film appealed to no one.

Spoon Rating: 5

The Roommates [1973]

This movie is best described as a series of pornos but only the very beginning before anyone starts having sex. No exaggeration. Every scene is an interaction between two characters, talking about sex, and the implication that they might immediately bone right after. Then suddenly, someone gets killed at the summer camp where the film is set. We genuinely didn't expect it to be a horror film to the point that Adam made a joke about Freddy suddenly appearing and offing someone. 

Is it worth explaining the plot? Or should I say plots? One girl decides to sleep with a divorced rich guy and gets sad but rebounds with some blonde dude she was presumably screwing earlier. One girl has her younger cousin come over and the creepy dude who screwed her at 16 decides to go after her cousin. There's also a guy living in her woods. They don't screw but they do have a moment. There's a girl who works at the library and starts hitting it off with the town sheriff. Then there's a girl who is a camp counselor and ends up screwing one of the campers. Also all these girls might be college students? And the film started with an orgy? This is the most sexless sex movie ever, but the male gaze camera work is cranked up to 11. You will see boobs and so, so much midriff that it's basically the 2004 Teen Choice Awards.

Honestly, this movie was hilarious. We got a lot of joy out of it. What's not to laugh about when everything is a porn set up? It has a real Psycho ripoff of a conclusion to the killer subplot, but that doesn't stop the girls from joyously riding off after a crazy summer, hahaha! 

People died.

Spoon Rating: 6

Fatal Deviation [1998]

Happy St. Patrick's Day! In honor of the holiday Adam cooked up some Irish farm stew and found a low budget Irish martial arts film for us that was a vehicle for a Van Damme fanboy to really show his American Kenpo skills. If the title doesn't sound familiar, there's a famous soundbite that may as it seems to have entered the meme world for its quality: "You made me look bad . . . and that's not good." Incredible writing there from the land of Swift, Wilde, and Joyce. Really makes us proud to be of Irish heritage, and not in any way question why our ancestors left.

James Bennett leaves his reform school (in his 30s seemingly) to venture out and learn martial arts like his murdered dad. Along the way he saves a girl from some goons, but mostly just picks fights with whoever is around to show off his skills. Sometimes he punches a bag and does splits. This catches the attention of the man who murdered his father who makes the bold decision to try to get him into his squad. I think they do crime? It's unclear. There's also a tournament coming up for Beltane (martial arts has literally nothing to do with this holiday) and Bennett is invited to attend. He goes on some dates, has a bar fight, shoots guys while standing on a motorcycle, and then has a long sequence where he learns to fight from a Franciscan monk, who are known for their fighting, right? The movie takes a turn for the Bloodsport ripoff, which is just an Enter The Dragon ripoff, to have the tournament, which Bennett wins. Later, at his second picnic with the girl, he finally gets to shoot his father's murderer with a shotgun. Blooper reel!

This movie is quality. Aside from the painfully obvious nods to other martial arts film, it's got insane lines with insane reads, a plot that doesn't do anything, highly realistic sound effects, and incongruous light 90s pop music. It's also only an hour and ten minutes, a perfect length for it to not drag on too long and with very few dull moments. A definite recommend.

Spoon Rating: 6

Joshua And The Promised Land [2003]

Always an interesting night when it starts with the question, "Where did you find this?" And the answer is, some YouTube video but I genuinely don't remember which one; just that I got two minutes it and paused it because we needed to watch it for ourselves.

As you can see from the image on the left, this one is a real winner with its eye-searing animation. But bonus: it's also religious. An anthropomorphic lion child named Joshua hears his parents fighting and is whisked away to the Bible story of Moses and, uh, Joshua by an angel who's also an Italian-American stereotype. The film is narrated by a purple creature in a bow tie, very Chippendale style. After all these adventures, he goes home for dinner and at the sight of him his parents immediately stop fighting and everything is solved, I guess.

This is a short one at 50 minutes and while it's pretty incredible to behold, the joke does wear a little thin after a while. Somehow a movie of this length still has padding. Overall, it's worth one watch if you are drunk or just feeling a little silly.

Spoon Rating: 5

Since it was a short one we followed it up with two shorts: "Red Asphalt IV" from 1998 that was a shockumentary about car accidents that they would show in a driver's ed class and emphatically not fun, and "Soapy the Germ Fighter" from 1951 where a boy learns that bathing isn't for sissies from a giant bar of soap with arms and legs. We gave that one a spoon rating of 6. It was delightful.

Megalopolis [2024]

Having watched a review or two about this movie, I knew that it was insane but I somehow still didn't know what it was about. I knew it was a decades long passion project by Francis Ford Coppola. I knew it was based on this idea of America as an allegory for Ancient Rome based on an actual part of Roman history. I knew who was in it. But I figured in order to actually understand it, I would need to watch it. That did not help.

I don't know how to explain the plot to someone else, but I can tell you the themes are everywhere: written on buildings and in title cards spoken by Lawrence Fishburne so you kind of feel like Morpheus is explaining the purpose to you. That being said, the movie doesn't seem to actually convey these themes, which is why they are explained to you. There's references up the wazoo that are maybe meant to service these ideas but just don't: Hamlet, Henry II's Bishop of Canterbury thing, Marcus Aurelius, Nazi Germany. I mean, I like history and literature too, Frank. The film also has a lot of visual language. A lot. Too much you might say. It's a lot of film styles mixed together that lead to us comparing certain shots to Sin City and others to The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover. It was futuristic in a cheap CGI meets Art Deco way, while also looking like Ancient Rome circa 1950s epics: gladiator heels with square diamonds. In a way, I liked the aesthetic. In a way, I hated it terribly.

Here's my best attempt at explaining the plot of film, but you have to imagine it more like a bunch of vignettes in the same universe. Caesar Catalina is an architect/scientist/guy-who-can-stop-time who wants to create a permanent city of the future that will be a utopia for all. His rival is Mayor Cicero who likes the status quo and focusing on the now and also hates Caesar because he was the DA when Caesar was accused of killing his wife. Cicero's daughter, Julia, falls for Caesar's vision and him and they eventually get married and have a kid so Cicero gets over his hatred.. The Megalopolis utopia is funded by Caesar's rich uncle Crassus who ends up marrying Caesar's ex named, I kid you not, Wow Platinum, who just wants money. She seduces Crassus' grandson Clodio, who becomes something of a Trump allegory but is taken down by supporters of Caesar's utopia. Everyone is happy. The future is secured. You would not believe how much filler I left out in this explanation. This movie is over two hours long.

Because of it's length, this is a hard movie to recommend, but it has some genuinely funny acting moments (bless Aubrey Plaza who is just here to have fun) and so much nonsense that you are consistently mesmerized and confused. Possibly a good one if you're on drugs? 

With all its on-the-nose themes it really feels like the true meaning of this film is, if you have been trying to make something work for over 30 years and it still isn't coming together, maybe just stop.

Spoon Rating: 4

REWATCH: Popstar [2005]

After a few weeks off due to perpetual illness, we finally met up this week to rewatch the Aaron Carter (RIP) vehicle Popstar. It was actually even better than we remembered and we kind of want to up the score we gave to an 8.

Read the original review here.

Drugs Are Like That [1969], The Wave [1981], & Don't Copy That Floppy [1992]

It was a triple feature of shorts today, and although I tagged this with Occult Demon Cassette, none of these are actually from there, but they absolutely have those vibes. Back when I had a Facebook group, the person who runs that YouTube channel actually gave us a recommendation directly but alas, I don't think they ever found us again after Facebook banned my group for using the word "rape" when explaining the plot of a film. If you ever do find us again, we still love your work.

Tonight we started with a short called "Drugs Are Like That," which is basically a series of insane analogies for drug use that might lead you to think that anything fun or even just an element of existing is like drugs and therefore bad. It's such a poor explanation that we weren't even sure of the target audience. It featured kids talking, but kids would struggle to understand that the film is not telling them that drugs are equally as addictive as hopscotch and a baby's pacifier. Appropriately it is narrated by famed homophobe and orange enthusiast Anita Bryant who died last week. Rest in pieces.

Spoon Rating: 7

The next one was curiously called "The Wave" and was about a real high school classroom where a teacher basically formed a cult in order to show how someone could be drawn into Nazi ideology. The kid who gets picked on specifically gets wrapped up in the in-group mentally to the point where he volunteers to be the teacher's bodyguard and has a full crisis when the point of the lesson is revealed. It wasn't bad, but it definitely showed a kind of manipulative teaching that would absolutely get you fired in the modern day. There were a few laughs when the teacher held up an image of a wave and said, "The wave is coming" all dramatically, but the laughs were kind of on purpose.

Star Rating: 3/5

Our final one we knew would be a win from the title: "Don't Copy That Floppy." Completely incomprehensible to anyone under the age of 22, this PSA featured a rapper who looked like a mix of MC Hammer and Baron Samedi, giving us verse after sick verse about how it's not fair to gaming designers to copy their work. This one is one for the history books because there is no way we will ever stop singing the chorus.

Spoon Rating: 8

Pocket Ninjas [1997]

At only an hour and 17 minutes, you could think this movie would want to utilize its time well. Alas, this movie was at least 30% montage. We also hoped that the title would imply a kind of Toy Soldiers movie. No. They're not tiny; just kids. Losing already and the plot does not help at all.

Basically three kids at a dojo are given masks by their sensei and told to just go fight crime. This seems ridiculous until you realize it's even worse and the boss of the crime is also a kid (as possibly Robert Z'dar's kid in the film? Unclear). Most of the movie is about this with a little side plot with one of the kid's parents wanting to fuck the sensei and the day being saved by the one girl of the three wearing the sensei's mask instead and when she wins, she still doesn't get any respect from her male counterparts. Patriarchy, man. At that point the movie seems potentially over, but we randomly get this arcade fight sequence with the characters for reasons that are completely unclear.

We actually originally forgot to give this a spoon rating because we decided to instead watch some taiko drumming. 

Spoon Rating: 3